The worst nuclear power disaster in history started on April 26, 1986. It occurred at a nuclear power plant in what is today Ukraine (but was Russia back then). It is located 60 miles north of Kyiv. The accident was a 7 on a scale of 1-7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The Fukushima disaster was also a 7. The accident is complex, but it basically started with a safety test of a steam turbine. Due to ignorance, complacency, and design flaws, a core meltdown led to at least two explosions. Two engineers were killed. There was a raging reactor core fire and enormous amounts of radiation was released. The plant did not have a containment structure required of all American nuclear reactors. More radiation was released than in the Hiroshima bombing. The staff and firefighters battled the fire for ten days. They were exposed to extremely high rates of radiation. At least 28 died soon after and many more in the next ten years. Thousands died of cancer in the years after. Russia created the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone of 1,000 square miles (later expanded to 1,600 miles). The area is still uninhabitable.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Chernobyl-disaster
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/03/the-chernobyl-disaster-25-years-ago/100033/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
0 Comments